High-speed Internet gets the Greenlight

Managing Partner of Greenlight Networks Mark Murphy, of Penfield, right, checks in with his installation contractor Ken Swavely of Scottsville at an install for a Pittsford Village resident.(Photo11: KATE MELTON, KATE MELTON)Buy Photo

The more we use the Internet as an information and entertainment source, the more we'll want high-speed connections, and the more successful Mark Murphy's new company will be.

Murphy is owner, president and CEO of Greenlight Networks, an Internet service for residential customers that offers the fastest speeds in the Rochester area — starting at 100 megabits per second all the way up to 1 gigabit per second.

Greenlight will connect customers to existing fiber optic networks that currently serve only business and government customers. Prices range from $50 to $200 a month, depending on the speed, according to the company's website.

"We leverage those infrastructures and that allows us to more affordably get from neighborhood to neighborhood, to be as efficient as possible to expand using our fiber to get to the houses or get to the apartment complexes," Murphy said.

Some residents are canceling their cable television service, installing high-definition digital antennas for broadcast channels and tapping into streaming content with services such as Hulu and Netflix. The need for faster Internet connections becomes even more important as a larger number of devices, such as laptops, tablet computers, game systems and smart phones, are added to households.

Without a high-speed connection, connection interruptions are common when several users are online at the same time.

"There's a need now for bandwidth that's only going to grow over the next few years," said Murphy, who declined to say how many customers he has signed up so far.

So far, Murphy targeted multiple-dwelling residences: "Any place where there's a whole lot of people in close proximity to each other," he said.

Greenlight has six employees and also uses contractors to connect customers.

The first customer was Erie Harbor, a luxury apartment complex on Mt. Hope Avenue where high-speed connection is included in the monthly rent.

"They chose us because they wanted to differentiate their property from the other stuff on the market and really target a demographic that appreciated it," Murphy said.

Last summer he started the process of getting the necessary approvals from the New York state Public Service Commission that would allow Greenlight to have access to the infrastructure, such as utility poles and underground service conduits. Next, he worked out agreements with local utilities to use their utility poles.

So far he has connected residential customers in the village of Pittsford. Anybody interested in the service can go to the Greenlight website to sign up. Murphy will connect neighborhoods based on demand.

"In much the same way that Google went out to communities around Kansas City and said we'll go where we see the demand and where we can build networks economically we're doing the same thing here in Rochester now," Murphy said.

"Were compiling information on specific areas in and around the region and looking at what it's going to take for us to build there," Murphy said.